


Truth, Lies, and Inbetween

by prumneos



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Mild Language, Stanuary, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 12:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prumneos/pseuds/prumneos
Summary: Stan and Ford play a game to learn what they missed, featuring scenes from Stan's unfortunate past.





	Truth, Lies, and Inbetween

**Author's Note:**

> For Stanuary 2018, Week Two: Trouble

I. Surviving a Plane Crash

Stan held onto his lucky die with one hand and the armrest with the other. This was not, all things considered, the way he thought he was gonna go, but if it had to be in a plane crash, that was at least an interesting way to go. He'd make the headlines. The thought was so absurd that he threw his head back and laughed.

The plane jostled again.

He wished Stanford was with him.

The world burst.

When it settled, it was so quiet that Stan believed he really had died. That should have been upsetting, but it seemed—it seemed just fine, really. He was ready to line up and meet whoever was running the place. He tried to unbuckle himself, and discovered, in doing so, that he was bleeding from somewhere, and bleeding enough that it had soaked through his coat's sleeve. "Well, shit," he said. Something about being able to speak convinced him he was still alive. Maybe because dead people didn't have any reason to cuss. 

He had a pocketknife on hand, smuggled on in case he had some problems in the airport when he landed. It certainly solved his problems now, cutting through the belt easily enough. Nothing hurt, still, though he watched with detached interest as some of his blood dripped onto the thin, buckled carpet. Adrenaline sure was something.

There were more people alive than he expected—people dazed, and bloody, and bruised, people limping and crying and staring in shock. But alive. Stan helped cut out a few people, until someone tugged at his arm and ushered him out. Together, the twenty-odd surviving passengers and staff hobbled out of the plane, and stood nearby, gazing at the wreckage. They hadn't made it far out of the city. Already, authorities were driving up, sirens echoing their way into the silence.

They were still in Canada.

Stan was not allowed in Canada, anymore.

"Well," Stan said, "shit."

He looked himself over. As far as he could tell, his legs were just fine. As soon as he could, Stan sidled up to the nearest car—a cop car, recently emptied by the brave men trying to enact order on the chaos of the crash—and climbed in. Seat was still warm. Keys in the ignition.

No one noticed the missing car for a long, long time. Long enough, at any rate, for Stan to be long, long gone.

-

"On the agenda today? Nothing, if I have any say in it." 

"Is that 'nothing' as in _actually_ nothing, or is that 'nothing' as in, 'I'm gonna bug you until you play some nerd game with me' nothing?"

Ford ran his hand along his face, scratching idly at his overnight stubble. "Now that you mention it..."

"Not a snowflake's chance in hell, brother." Stan _had_ enjoyed playing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons when the kids were involved and the stakes were high—he didn't doubt that he would have fun playing solo with Ford, too, provided he could convince Ford to go easy on some of the rules. But the last week had been one thing after another, starting with some stupid argument with Ford and ending with an even stupider one after an angry pirate captain ghost boarded their dinghy and tried to murder Stan in his sleep because he had—uh—tried to preserve history by picking up a few gold coins from a hallowed pirate burial ground. Honestly, Stan had no idea pirate burial grounds could even _be_ hallowed, so he still didn't get why Ford got so mad about it.

Point was, Stan was sore, and tired, and tired of being sore. Letting the mellow, half-frozen sea do their work for them and spending the day bullshitting with Ford— _without_ getting into semantic arguments about game rules—sounded incredible. When he and Ford exchanged looks, he understood that Ford felt the same way, too. They smiled at the same time.

"Tomorrow, then," Ford said. 

Stan snorted. "Not likely." Which meant, maybe. 

First: Breakfast. Toast and eggs for Stan, scrambled because he couldn't be assed to do it any other way. Coffee and a pill for Ford, because his stomach still couldn't really handle food in the morning, though he did accept the bit of buttered toast Stan tore off for him and nibbled at it as he read over his notes. They took turns showering. Ford burned his stubble off on deck, since Stan had expressly forbidden it inside the ship (which had been yet another stupid argument for most of their trip). He took care to shake the snow on his jacket off on Stan, which was a fair price for a floating boat.

Stan caught up on the news, and groused about it while Ford sketched a family of sealions they'd seen a few weeks ago. Another cup of coffee for both of them. Ford fetched a blanket from their room and they sat together under it, mellow, and quiet, watching the mellow and quiet snow falling on deck. This close to Ford, Stan could hear him breathing, the steady and deep pull of it. He shut his eyes and listened, and matched his breathing to Ford's, and began, slowly, to sink down, not fighting the urge to sleep. A nothing day was the perfect kind of day to take a nap. Or two.

"Actually," Ford said, so quietly that Stan didn't fully wake up, "I think I would like to play a game."

Stan grunted, to prove he was listening.

"I think you'll like this one."

Stan grunted again, so Ford knew he doubted that.

"Let's play two truths, one lie." 

"What is this, a teeny bopper sleepover?" Stan asked, to let Ford know that he'd gotten Stan's interest.

 

II. Drug Running in Colombia  
  
Luis tapped the butt of his knife with a rhythm that would make a tommy gun embarrassed. He'd done this once or twice. In fact, he'd been the one to teach Stan the art, if it could be called that, and still critiqued Stan when he tried to mimic him. Stan's job was to make the lines: He had a knack for it, a trick of the wrists that made him shepherd the dust like he was born to impress men with his card tricks, coin tricks, and pristine lines of coke. 

Truth was, Stan had never been able to afford the stuff until coming south. It still unnerved him deeply to handle something so expensive. But Stan was a man who knew how to wear the faces he'd been given, and he loved wearing a rich man's face, so he shot his million-dollar smile at the impassive, still unnamed man who Luis assured him would make them a fortune, and he tapped Luis on the forearm. "Allow me," he said, in English. 

That was the first thing to make Big Boss speak. He leaned on his forearm to better peer at Luis. "White boy doesn't speak Spanish?"

"Nah, he's dumb as a sack of bricks. But he makes a fantastic mule, Rico, just you wait. And look at the lines he makes!" Luis turned his crooked smile to Stan and addressed him in English. "Go on, amigo, show us your party tricks." 

One of the first things Stan had to learn growing up was how to keep smiling, so that part was chump change. Restraining himself from decking Luis was a little harder, but all he had to do was imagine himself swimming in a pool filled with money to keep up his amenable attitude. 

"Prepare to be amazed, gentlemen." He flourished a credit card, and the show began: Six neat lines with a few quick swipes were easy enough to make out of Luis' fine work, but still earned Stan a raised eyebrow from Rico. Making three of those lines disappear with three more flicks of the wrist, though -- _that_ got Rico's attention. 

"Now," Stan said, "you may be wondering: Where's my money gone? Well, sir, let me show you! Not up my sleeve, not in my pockets—go on, Luis, show him." Luis reached over and turned out Stan's jacket pockets, showing Rico a pack of cigarettes and lighter and an old, crumpled receipt. "But wait—I think I found it..." Stan clapped; when his hands parted, there was a brick of cocaine between them. He set it on the table and sat back, pleased as a cat with a canary.  
  
Rico immediately called over the two guards who had patted Stan and Luis down before letting them sit with him. "How did this happen? Didn't you check? What the fuck is wrong with you two shitbirds?" They protested, but Rico's attention had already switched. "Get up," he said to Stan, in Spanish. He was so furious that Stan almost complied, but he caught himself, and just stared blankly instead. "Get up!" he repeated, this time in English. 

Stan stood, and stretched out his arms, like Houdini himself offering all of his secrets. The guards went to him and patted him down again. This time, they uncovered another brick of cocaine and a small pistol. They did not, Stan noted, check his shoes, and therefore didn't discover his extra cash and knife. 

When they stepped back, Stan smiled. "So. What d'you think? Do I make the cut?"

Rico, to Stan's immense relief, smiled back.

-

Ford opened with a lie. A rookie mistake, one that Stan caught even before Ford spoke, because he had a knack for tensing a certain way and bracing himself, probably internally reciting all of the things he knew about tells and reminding himself not to show them. "The first tattoo I got has no significance to me whatsoever." 

"Uh huh," Stan said. "And remind me, which one was your first?" 

Ford extracted his arm from the blanket and pulled back his sleeve. A few faded black dots on the pale underside of his forearm: A constellation. 

"Right, right. So the _other_ star was number two, huh? And obviously that was _super_ significant." 

Ford elbowed him, but didn't agree or disagree. He folded his sleeve back down and tucked his arm back under the blanket. "Two: I once let a colony of microscopically tiny aliens live in my pocket, on the condition that they produce water for me." 

"Okay, that one's weird enough that it _has_ to be true. They still chilling in there?" 

"Three," Ford said, "I once made a deal with a creature that may have literally been a devil. Um, and I'm not referring to Bill Cipher." 

"Big fan of making bad deals, huh?" 

Ford's smile was thin, but he didn't argue. "So," he said, "which one is the lie?" 

 

III. Owning a Snake

Jimmy was the first person in a decade who knew Stan's real name. First name, anyway. He understood what it meant to have a past worth running from. Never pried, never asked more of Stan than Stan had to offer. Never called Stan stupid. Not once.

He was a good friend.

Until he wasn't.

The snake had been owned by a snake charmer, who'd been surprised, upon moving to the States, that his business was illegal outside of extremely specific circumstances. He'd decided maybe it was better to try his hand with business-owning that didn't involve illegal snakes, and sold the lot to various black market reptile aficionados. A year later, Stan, who hadn't driven the Stanleymobile in almost seven months, heard from an acquaintance that their friend's cousin had a real life cobra that they couldn't take care of anymore, and couldn't get rid of it for nothing. 

And Jimmy's birthday was in just a couple weeks. 

Turned out, the acquaintance only loved one thing more than reptiles, and that was meth. Stan didn't care for the stuff except on long road trips, but kept his cut just like anyone else, and as a result had one of the easiest bartering sessions of his life. Walked away with one sleepy cobra and a box full of mice, and, most precious of all: The certainty that he'd done something right, for once in his life.

Jimmy babied that snake like it was his own child, or at least as much as any human can baby an extremely venomous and antisocial snake. Every time he smiled at that snake, Stan felt the warmth of Jimmy's happiness blossom in his chest, like the smile was directed at him, instead. Business never went better and never felt easier than in those few months.

Stan ruined it. Of course. How could he blame Jimmy, when it was Stan who stuck his hand too far into the cage, Stan who had sworn up and down the thing had its venom sacs removed, Stan who was so dumb that he let himself get bitten by one of the most venomous snakes in the world?

He panicked. Doctors would wonder why someone in Florida got bit by a cobra, would get police officers sniffing around Jimmy's home base. Going to the hospital was out of the question.

Until the vomiting started. Then it started to edge into the question. 

Then his eyesight started to go, and it was time for Stan to go, too.

Jimmy bundled the cobra up in a leather bag, and gave it to Stan. Had him hold it as Jimmy drove him to the nearest hospital. 

"If they come down on me," Jimmy said, "I got your number, Stan. You understand?"

At the time, Stan only really understood that he didn't want to die. 

He caught on by morning.  
  
-

"I think you're trying to pull a fast one on me," Stan said. "They're all half-true. Right?"

Ford opened his mouth, then reconsidered. "Not exactly. But it was the first one that was the least true." 

Bingo, Stan thought, but didn't say. There was a time and place for rubbing it in Ford's face. "So, what, was that some kinda wordplay? It _had_ significance, but doesn't anymore?" 

"That's correct. It used to be a reminder of what Bill meant to me."

"Still is, isn't it?" 

If Ford had an answer to that, he didn't care to share it with Stan. He picked up his mug of coffee and went back to watching the snow.

"Guess it's my turn, then."

"Guess it is." 

Stan cleared his throat. "I survived a plane crash," he said. "I used to be buddies with the head honcho of a cartel. And I've died twice. Not including that bullshit with Bill." 

"The second one," Ford said. 

Stan smacked the top of Ford's mug and buzzed like Ford had messed up in a game show. "Ooohh, wrong-o, Einstein. Better luck next time. The answer we were looking for was number three. Which, incidentally, is how many times I've actually flatlined."

"How on earth are you still _alive?"_ Ford asked, much more impressed than concerned, which was how Stan preferred it.

"Eh." Stan shrugged. "What can I say? I'm stubborn." He scratched his nose. Ford took the opportunity, and took him by the wrist. Pulled it down under the blankets, where he ran his thumb over Stan's wrist, then flipped his hold so he could press his first two fingers against Stan's pulse.

"Too stubborn for your own good," Ford said. It sounded like, _thank you._

 

IV. The Truth

—was that Stan didn't care about his own past, his own assembly of facts. Losing his memories was one of the best things to ever happen to him. The memories that floated to the surface felt more like bad gas than a reuniting of himself; the only ones that mattered to him at all were those of the kids, and of Ford, and of the sea. 

Sure, he'd had a couple of nice mornings and nice nights, a handful of people he might not have loved but whose company he enjoyed, at least. But really, his life had been nothing but grief from the moment he lost Ford; now that Ford was back, and with him, and _safe,_ there wasn't anything that could trouble Stan, anymore. Not scars, not sweat-slick afternoons behind bars, not brushes with death, not blood. None but Ford's, anyhow, when their adventures managed to eke it out of him. 

The truth was, Stan understood where Ford came from, when he tentatively asked Stan about his life, when he, head bowed, divulged his own memories to Stan; Stan understood that it mattered to Ford what he'd gone through, that it mattered to Ford who'd hurt Stan. 

And, truth be told, Stan could never ask for more out of life than that.

-

"Alright, alright," Stan said. "That's enough. It's your turn." 

Ford's fingers drifted away. The warmth of them stayed. "Hm. Well...alright. First, I know who really broke Ma's vase, and not because it was me...."


End file.
